Santorum, Gingrich confront Romney

Mitt Romney was again on the defensive Monday night, fending off early ambushes from several directions — and sparring at length with underdog rivals Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich — at the GOP presidential primary debate in South Carolina.

The front-runner in South Carolina and nationally, Romney faced attacks on his business record, his views on voting rights and his history of changing political positions — all within the first hour of the event.

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Romney also benefited from a divided field of opponents who cannot seem to resist the impulse to fight among themselves, allowing him to rely in large part on a controlled and entirely familiar campaign message. His conservative challengers frequently turned their attention to squabbling with libertarian-leaning candidate Ron Paul and several times failed to follow up on their attacks against Romney.

There were a few rare moments, however, when the former Massachusetts governor appeared to stammer and grasp for balance. And after weeks of declining to promise to release his tax returns, Romney relented — mostly — under persistent questioning from moderators.

“In history, people have released them around April of the coming year, and that’s probably what I’ll do,” Romney conceded.

Among Romney’s opponents, Newt Gingrich was first to pile on, accusing Romney and his former private-equity firm, Bain Capital, of having acquired companies, “leaving them with enormous debt and then within a year or two or three, having them go broke.”

Gingrich battered Romney again later in the debate, sarcastically criticizing him for claiming he cannot control the super PAC Restore Our Future — “which makes you wonder how much influence he’d have as president,” Gingrich said.

Rick Perry, too, charged at Romney a few minutes in, demanding that he “release your income tax[es] so the people of this country can see how you made your money.”

Romney’s most formidable interlocutor may have been Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who fought Romney to an effective draw in Iowa, and who has sought to recover his political momentum on the strength of Christian conservative support in South Carolina.

In fact, Santorum said, he wanted to give voting rights to people who had already paid their debt to society.

“I would ask Gov. Romney,” Santorum said, “do you believe people who are felons who have served their time, who have exhausted their parole and probation, should they be given the right to vote?””

Pressed repeatedly by Santroum, Romney responded in a level tone: “I don’t think people who committed violent crimes should be allowed to vote again.”

But Santorum wasn’t finished, and continued hammering away at Romney.

“In the state of Massachusetts, when you were governor, the law was that not only could violent felons vote after they exhausted their sentences, but they could vote while they were on probation and parole, which was a more liberal position than I took,” Santorum said. “Why didn’t you try to change that when you were governor of Massachusetts?”

Romney shot back that he had to contend with a state Legislature that was 85 percent Democratic. He added that didn’t order a super PAC hit on Santorum as that would be illegal.